Thursday, May 24, 2012

The Past as Prelude


The Past as Prelude



I used to say, “My children are going to have the responsibility of emptying this house, because I am never moving.” That was thirty five years, three towns and four homes ago. I sit here looking around the home, into which I moved into less than a year ago, the new one, the one that now makes me happy, thinking that this is probably not the last place I will live in.  I used to think that what is today, is forever.  I should know better.  In my childhood, I lived in three different homes, as my father’s fortunes rose.  Today, when I go back to Columbus Ohio, I can only drive by those homes and the apartment they moved into after I left for college.  My mother is still alive and owns two residences, which she inhabits based on the time of year.   The condo in Florida is the third home in which she has resided, during the years, she has been wintering in Sarasota Florida.  She should move out of the house in Ohio, where she spends the summers.  It is in need of repairs, which for reasons too complex to go into, we will not inherit, and thus appear to be a waste of dollars, but it has a pool, where she does her water exercises and she won’t let go. 

All of those changes should have given me a clue, told me that permanence of residence was not what was in store for me.  It should have taught me not to acquire belongings that would need to be transported, packed up or given away. But, I continue to acquire, and I continue to move.    

When my late husband and I informed our daughter that we were selling the house she grew up in, and moving her response was; “I planned to get married in the back yard.”  After all that is where we had celebrated most of her birthdays and held the celebrations of her and her brother’s B’nai mitzvahs.  My husband promptly responded to her; “you better hurry up.” Parenthetically, I should note, that she did not hurry up, and did not marry in any back yard.  

            And so, we moved out of her suburban childhood home, into a condo near downtown, New Haven Connecticut.  That condo taught me something I did not previously know about myself.  Although I had enjoyed creating a city environment and loved that we could walk downtown and thoroughly enjoyed all of the culture that was so readily available, what I had not known about myself was that seeing sky was very important to my psyche.  In that lovely apartment, in order to see sky, from all but the living room windows, in order to see the sky, I needed to bend over and look up.  I hadn’t known how important sky was to my soul.  So, we sold the apartment and moved to an oversized house on Long Island Sound, a fifteen minute drive from New Haven.  I loved the light, I loved living on the water, so much in fact I hung an ad from the New Haven Register that said “when I win the lottery, I will buy a house where even the closets have a view of the water.” My house had closets with a view of the water.  I was in heaven.  I loved that house.  I loved everything about that house.  It was light, it was bright, my life was happy in that house, my artistic talents came to flower while living in that house.  My marriage was in a wonderful place, we both enjoyed the yard, spending our summer weekends in hammock chairs hung from a tree, watching the passing boat parade and listening to public radio, after we had finished our gardening.  We even enjoyed watching the snow on the deck banisters and listening to the seagulls shriek.  We built a studio over the garage, and had his and hers drafting tables, where we spent companionable hours, him doing his pointillism drawings, and me painting with exuberant colors or pasting my collages. 

            Entertaining in that house, was pleasurable, both doing all of the holiday meals, enjoying out of town visitors, and topping it all were the Fourth of July celebrations, punctuated by the fireworks display put on by the local VFW, off the dock just a football field away. 

            I was going to die in that house, but life is full of surprises and he died there.  One minute he was there laughing and joking and the next he was not.  The week following that event was full of love, full of family and friends who came not only to comfort me, but to feel his presence in the place that he loved and where they could remember him.  It should have made me sad, to be there without him, but it did not.  He was there, I continued to feel him there, even on the summer weekends, I would sit in the chair hammock with the radio playing the old familiar programs, and talk to him as if he were there.  I would still be there today.  I knew the house was far too big for just me, but I still loved it, it had so many happy memories, which wrapped around me like his large tallit did him on the Jewish holidays.  I knew I should move, and one year after his death, I began to ask him, to ask God, for a sign.  I asked, I pleaded for an answer, “what is next?” I would ask “Make the answer loud and clear” I would cry.  Three months into this process, as I was packing to spend the winter with my mother in Florida, the phone rang, as I was sitting in his office paying our bills, thinking the house was expensive to keep up, it was my daughter.  “I have good news and bad news.” She said. “Which do you want first?”

“Give me the bad.” I replied, thinking the good might take the sting away.  “We are moving to California.”

My heart sank into my feet.  They were going to move to California, all that way across the country and they would be taking my very special granddaughter, the person who lit sparks in my heart.  They were taking her away; another loss.  All of our wonderful weekends in the Berkshire house they owned, would be no more.  All of the times when she would stand in the driveway as I drove up and put her arms out yelling “Grandma.”  All of the … my mind flashed through the pictures and the emotions.  I was on the verge of tears, but I needed to hear the good news.  “So what’s the good news?”

“Jon, got a fabulous job, after two years of contract work, punctuating the periods of unemployment, it promises stability”  drawing a breath,  she added “Jon won’t move unless you come with us.” 

“Yes!” I answered.

 “But, Mom you didn’t even think.”

Knowing that my daughter doesn’t believe anything about the afterlife, about signs from God, divine intervention, or anything spiritual, I knew that telling her that this was the answer I was looking for, I hesitated telling her the truth.  But in the end, an answer was required, so I gave her some version of what I was thinking.  Don’t ask me what I said, but whatever it was, her response was that she needed to call Jon and tell him, so that he could accept the job. 

It took me more than a year from that phone call to accomplish the move.  Walking out the door the very last day, would not have been possible, if my son had not made it his business to make sure I was not alone.  The house, and all of its memories wanted me to stay, but I knew that I needed to move on.  That place was only one wonderful part of my journey, I needed to continue, to write the next page, take the next step, and discover what was in store.

It is nearly ten years, and two homes later, that I write this, I do not know what comes next, that is what life is about, the journey continues and I wake each morning whether I wake to bright sunshine or marine layer, I awake smiling and invite whatever life has to give, thinking as my husband would say, “Every day is a good day, some days are better than others.”

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